Unmasking Startup L. Jackson • Hacker News Board

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#71

Post by dipnuggetron » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:32 PM UTC

joshdickson wrote: post #68

dipnuggetron wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your blog post which I assume is connected to aproduct would have gotten a lot more traction is you had actually outed him.

It might have, but I don't think it would have been the right type of attention. I think outing would have been wrong, and even if I didn't feel that way, I think a lot of tech folks would have really come down hard on me in the future. The tech world is amazingly small and insular in my experience, and as someone trying to break into that world, the last thing you want to do is give everyone a reason to never take y…

Nice to see someone with ethics though.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#72

Post by joshdickson » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

veryluckyxyz wrote: post #66

joshdickson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm surprised by how many people still ask me this. There's proof in the piece, but I also write long so I don't blame you if you missed it :)

Can you please tell now the proof in your piece? Pretty please!

See here: https://twitter.com/joshdickson40/status/710567574354968577

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#73

Post by Kalium » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

fowkswe wrote: post #46

I was always a big fan of https://twitter.com/hipsterhacker He's for the most part inactive, but occasionally drips out something acerbically relevant.

HipsterHacker is always a hoot. I'm reasonable certain the person has a day job, though.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#74

Post by hackuser » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

In Silicon Valley, a place he calls “obsessed with status and pedigree,” could someone’s ideas get traction when it wasn’t clear if the speaker was a state-school dropout or someone with a $100 million checkbook?

That sounds very different than the meritocracy narrative. It would explain why women and most minorities are so excluded.

I know the next sentence says he succeeded, but that's just one Twitter account and doesn't represent a broader trend.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#75

Post by gohrt » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

So so many words to say nothing but "someone in the tech industry has a sense of humor, was anonymous for a while"

> “But there just aren’t that many people who are in the industry who will respond to you if you have 500 followers, you know? They’re just like, ‘Who the f--- are you? Leave me alone.’ ”

Ugh, Twitter.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#76

Post by jamisteven » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

His advice became a hit for one reason, his handle. Far too often is the name of something downplayed as not being important, but it is. Its catchy, a gimmick, and people love it.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#77

Post by Perceptes » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

tosseraccount wrote: post #3

https://twitter.com/startupljackson is the twitter site. We need a list of sometimes anonymous, poignant and politically incorrect twitter feeds for other industries. For Finance, check out https://twitter.com/ReformedBroker ("Downtown" Josh Brown) and "gselevator" https://twitter.com/GSElevator ) (author was also eventually unmasked) "Teach the coal miners and frackers Python and Ruby." classic.

I'm a fan of https://twitter.com/PLT_Hulk and https://twitter.com/jsjeopardy

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#78

Post by discodave » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

vox_mollis wrote: post #14

potatolicious wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP was using "politically incorrect" in its original definition - i.e., speaking in a way counter to what's politically popular/accepted by the elite. Which in Startup L. Jackson's case was definitely true - he called out a lot of the Valley's cultural myopia, excesses, and failures in a way that he would have been unable to do without the pseudonymity or pretense of satire. Unfortunately the word has also be…

The word has been co-opted as such because the dominant groupthink of the boomers now in power is decidedly progressive.

Err, not really, the "boomers now in power" are the ones complaining about an excess of political correctness. See Donald Trump and his supporters, Fox News, UKIP or Tony Abbott in Australia.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#79

Post by flashman » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

My top five contenders for the author were:

@davemcclure - Dave McClure

@pt - Parker Thompson

@tylerschultz - Tyler Schultz

@supernate - Nate Clark

@dsboulder

I could never narrow it down to one of them. I had a simple theory: in the beginning, Startup L. Jackson's Twitter followers had a higher probability of following the real author's account, and they would have probably followed the author before Startup L. Jackson.

All I had to do was get the list of people following SLJ (which Twitter provides in reverse chronological order), then find who those people followed before SLJ. The people above were followed by at least six of SLJ's first 500 followers, making them prime contenders, but as I said, I never found a smoking gun for any of them.

Re: Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

#80

Post by _s » Thu, Mar 17, 2016, 10:17 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #4

I've found @DEVOPS_BORAT to be funny too. Kept seeing his tweets for over a year or two; humorous ones about devops, from an imaginary Armenian devops guy with broken English. Seems to have stopped tweeting a while ago.

@sadserver (https://twitter.com/sadserver) and @sadoperator (https://twitter.com/sadoperator) also have a bunch of gems!